Saturday, April 4, 2015

I guess our commenters are right. There wasn't a single mention of Nazi memorabilia or racist shooting targets. Not a hint of anti-government propaganda either, except of course that little mention of "Obama's gun control agenda." And with that music lineup, I'm sure black gun owners will be turning out in droves. Yes, I suppose the NRA has truly become, not only gender balanced, but racially balanced as well. Maybe next week we can get some live images to prove this.

Long time Anti-Gun leader, Sarah Brady, the widow of former White House Press Secretary James Brady, has died, The Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence announced today.
She was 73.The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said in a Facebook
post: “We are heartbroken over the loss of Sarah Brady, our dear friend
and Chairperson of the Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun
Violence. Sarah was a champion for gun violence prevention and her
commitment and fiery compassion will live on.”

A 44-year-old ethnic Miao man Gun Liangma fires his gun during a shooting practice.Although people in Basha no longer subsist on hunting,
guns and gunpowder pots have become part of their traditional dress, and
firing towards the sky is a ritual to welcome guests.

Friday, April 3, 2015

We did it! Thanks to your phone calls and e-mails Shaneen Allen was granted a full pardon by Governor Christie.

The single mother who became victim to New Jersey’s ridiculous and draconian gun laws can finally get her life back.

But our fight is not over! As I stated in my January meetings, “We will stop at nothing and keep fighting for our rights with absolutely no compromise.”
This is evidence of our success and Shaneen would not have been
pardoned if it was not for our members’ persistent and consistent fight
for freedom.

On April 2 2015, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) signed SB 45, abolishing the need for a concealed carry permit in order to carry a concealed handgun in the state.

This means Kansas joins Alaska, Arizona, Vermont, and Wyoming in
doing away with concealed carry permit requirements and also joins
Montana, which has done away with a concealed permit requirement outside
of city limits in that state.

Kansas will continue to offer concealed carry permit courses and
licenses for those who want to get them in order to enjoy reciprocity
with the 36 other states that recognize Kansas licenses, but no license
will be necessary in order to carry inside Kansas’s borders.

When signing the bill, Brownback talked of how “carrying a gun is a constitutional right” and added, “We’re saying if you want to do that in this state, then you don’t have to get a permission slip from the government.”

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Could
the mental health system have saved the life of Missouri gubernatorial
candidate Tom Schweich? His tragic death last month was apparently the
result of a single self-administered gunshot wound to the head. He left
behind a grieving family and friends, as well as members of the media,
who have speculated about what may have driven him to suicide. Was it the result of bullying? Was he a martyr in a fight against anti-Semitism or dirty politics?

We
don't have definitive answers to these questions, and maybe we never
will. What we know for certain is that Tom Schweich, like dozens of
people in America each day, was a victim of gun violence. If he and 10%
of others who attempt suicide by a firearm instead attempted it by
taking an overdose of pills, we would have 1,900 fewer suicide fatalities each year.

The
idea of suicide conjures up thoughts of mental health problems such as
major depressive disorder or substance use problems. This is reasonable,
because between 60% and 90% of individuals worldwide who succeed in
their suicide attempt are thought to have a psychiatric disorder; major
depression, bipolar disorder and substance abuse are the leading
conditions associated with suicide.

However,
simply focusing on mental illness ignores other contextual issues that
connect the thought of suicide to its completion. As many as 40% of people who attempt suicide do so impulsively,
research shows. But while many individuals who attempt suicide have a
discernible psychiatric condition, some, particularly those engaged in
an impulsive suicide attempt, do not. Instead, it is typical that they
have been subjected to high levels of stress before the suicide event:
intense emotional states that may have been brought about by
interpersonal conflict.

Overwhelmingly the answer was “because I can.” OK, sounds pretty
simple. There’s an amendment to the constitution that hasn’t been
repealed stating that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
“A well-organized militia being necessary to the security of a free
state,” offers up questions that many demand answers to, but that’s
beside the point.

So what are the reasons the modern conservative extremist ammosexual gives for owning a deadly weapon?

Me too. People who scare me the most are those carrying guns around
who are more likely to shoot someone out of fear than for an actual
reason.

Why dial 911 when you can be judge, jury and executioner? Remember the girl who was gunned down
on a gun nut’s front porch because she knocked on the door looking for
help after an accident? That homeowner dialed the wrong number for
sure.

Director Heather Martens of Protect Minnesota said the lack of suppressor appearances in crimes is due to the prohibition.

"The more available silencers become, the more they are likely to be used in crime," she said in an email.

In
2007, Alaskan lawyer Paul A. Clark wrote in Western Criminology Review:
"One might conclude that if silencers were more common their use in
crime would also increase, but there is no real way to tell."

"Since
one can effectively muffle a firearm by doing nothing more than
wrapping it in a towel it is unlikely that laws banning professionally
manufactured (or home-made) silencers are likely to have any real effect
on crime," he wrote.

Howe said would-be troublemakers would use "some backyard method" to suppress the sound of a gun.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A vast majority of likely 2016 voters oppose legislation that would
allow gun owners to carry their concealed weapons without a permit,
according to a new national poll released Wednesday.

The
poll, shared first with The Huffington Post and conducted on behalf of
Everytown for Gun Safety, a coalition of gun control groups, was done to
assess public attitudes toward carrying concealed weapons. The issue is
a timely one, as three state legislatures -- in West Virginia, Kansas
and Montana -- are considering rolling back some of their permit
requirements.

Everytown found that 88 percent of likely 2016
voters oppose concealed carry without a permit, and 57 percent of voters
said they would be less likely to support a candidate who voted to
allow concealed carry without a permit.

Even 80 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of gun owners opposed concealed carry without a permit.

State lawmakers in nearly 20 states this spring are considering, or
have recently considered, bills that would allow guns in k12 schools or
on college campuses — including Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Florida, and
Georgia.

“There’s definitely a lot of activity this year. In terms of higher
ed, we had eight states with bills last year, and now we have 15 — and
even one would be absolutely unacceptable,” said Andy Pelosi, executive
director of The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus.

Among the state legislation under current consideration is a bill in
Colorado that would allow any individual with a concealed-weapon permit
the right to carry guns into K12 schools. One of its chief proponents is
a lawmaker who was a sophomore at Columbine High School during the 1999
shooting. But among its opponents is Colorado third-grade teacher Katie
Lyles, an NEA member and also a Columbine survivor, who was spurred by
the Sandy Hook in school shootings in 2012 to speak up for gun safety.

“I think [the CO bill] a really short-sighted, reactive solution,” Lyles told National Public Radio.
“I feel like we need to be looking at a different conversation. And
that conversation is, how do we prevent violence from even entering that
school.”

Moreover, how do guns and kids safely mix, she asked. “”If I had a
gun, kids are around me all of the time. They’re giving me hugs. So
where do I keep that gun?”

According to the California-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence,
the vast majority of states (all except Hawaii and New Hampshire)
generally prohibit guns from K12 schools, but there are exceptions. For
example, concealed-carry permit holders can carry their firearms into
K12 schools in 11 states — including Utah, where an elementary school
teacher accidentally shot herself in the leg in a teachers’ bathroom in September.

Months before Illinois became the last state in the union to legalize
“conceal carry,” a droll cartoon ran in the local papers. A masked man
threatens another with a handgun, saying “Hand over all your valuables.”

“Nope, I’m armed,” says the would-be victim. “Just give me one minute to get my concealed gun out of its holster.”The armed citizen movement, driven by gun makers and whipped up fear
of “bad guys,” is predicated on the self-defense that carrying provides.
Yet if being armed and looking for trouble were true protection, would
law enforcement officers ever be killed?

It has been two years since Kaufman County, Texas District Attorney
Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia were shot to death in their home.

Mike McLelland carried a gun even when he walked his dog and his wife
Cynthia also had a license to carry a concealed handgun. “There were
guns hidden all over the house,” his son, J. R. McLelland, told the New
York Times. “Behind doors, everywhere. He could have been standing next
to a .40-caliber Glock and you would not have known it. When they said
that he got shot, it was unbelievable because he was so well-armed and
so well-versed in guns.”

Article
asks a good question: Wonder if Brady Center will pay the legal fees or
leave the plaintiffs to pay the frivolous lawsuit penalties for the
suit they encouraged them to file. In an order released yesterday, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch ruled against the plaintiffs in the case of Sandy Phillips, et al., v. Lucky Gunner, LLC., et al.

Sandy and Lonnie Phillips are the parents of Jessica Ghawi, one of
the victims of the Aurora movie theater shooting. The lawsuit was backed by the anti-gun Brady Center.

According to a September 2014 report
by ABC 7 News in Denver, the lawsuit accused “the four online suppliers
of ammunition and military-grade equipment of failing to screen the
gunman and making it too easy for him to buy ammunition, tear gas and
body armor.”

“We’re putting them on notice, we’re coming after you,” Lonnie Phillips was reported as saying.Apparently, the law had something else to say about that.

The case was dismissed for failure to overcome the industry protections in the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (15 U.S.C. § 7901 et seq.),
also known as PLCAA, signed into law by President George W. Bush in
2005. The plaintiffs’ arguments were also found to collapse under a
similar state law that protects the firearms community from frivolous
and harassing tort claims.

Monday, March 30, 2015

The Hyde Park man accused of shooting a Boston police officer in the face at point-blank range had a “violent criminal past,” authorities said Saturday, and court records showed he had recently completed probation for opening fire at officers during a 2001 struggle.

Police said officers fatally shot Angelo West, 41, Friday after he fired a .357 Magnum at Officer John Moynihan, striking the six-year veteran under the eye with a bullet that lodged behind his right ear, in what was called a “completely unprovoked attack.”

Police Commissioner William B. Evans said surveillance video showed West firing upon Moynihan after the officer approached the driver’s side of a silver Nissan Murano that they had pulled over.

“You just clearly see the driver come out of that driver’s side and his hand’s going up as he comes out,” Evans said. “Point-blank he shoots the officer right in the face.”

There are 15 noteworthy contenders for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Together, they own at least 40 guns.

Some
of them have been building their collections since childhood. Sen.
Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) is up to 12 now, including an AR-15 assault
weapon that he has talked about using if law and order ever breaks down in his neighborhood. Former Texas governor Rick Perry is so well-armed, he has a gun for jogging.

Others
were city kids who didn’t own guns until later in life. Sen. Marco
Rubio (Fla.) bought a .357 magnum revolver in 2010, the year he ran for
Senate, saying the gun was for protection.

Two other city-bred
presidential hopefuls — former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey
Gov. Chris Christie — don’t own a gun at all.

The stories behind how the GOP presidential contenders got their guns —
or, in some cases, why they didn’t — are as diverse as the field itself.Nevertheless, their political views on guns are almost all the same.

Nearly every GOP contender is broadly opposed to new limits on the purchase or use of guns.

In
fact, with the exception of Christie — the field’s one true outlier —
those who have been rated by the National Rifle Association range from
A-plus all the way down to . . . A-minus. Eleven of them are scheduled to appear next month at the NRA’s annual conference.

To hear the far-right ideologues of Fox News and AM talk
radio tell it, life in Europe is hell on Earth. Taxes are high, sexual
promiscuity prevails, universal healthcare doesn’t work, and millions of
people don’t even speak English as their primary language! Those who
run around screaming about “American exceptionalism” often condemn
countries like France, Norway and Switzerland to justify their jingoism.
Sadly, the U.S.’ economic deterioration means that many Americans
simply cannot afford a trip abroad to see how those countries function
for themselves. And often, lack of foreign travel means accepting
clichés about the rest of the world over the reality. And that lack of
worldliness clouds many Americans' views on everything from economics to
sex to religion.

Here are nine things Americans can learn from the rest of the world.

3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015

No
matter how severe the U.S.’ decline becomes, neocons and the Tea Party
continue to espouse their belief in “American exceptionalism.” But in
many respects, the U.S. of 2015 is far from exceptional. The U.S. is not
exceptional when it comes to civil liberties (no country in the world
incarcerates, per capita, more of its people than the U.S.) or healthcare (WHO ranks the U.S. #37 in
terms of healthcare). Nor is the U.S. a leader in terms of life
expectancy: according to the WHO, overall life expectancy in the U.S. in
2013 was 79 compared to 83 in Switzerland and Japan, 82 in Spain,
France, Italy, Sweden and Canada and 81 in the Netherlands, Germany,
Norway, Austria and Finland.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

The Terrorist Watchlist is not to be confused with the no-fly list.
There have been some well-publicized issues with the no-fly list, which
have been used to raise false concerns over this legislation. The
Terrorist Watchlist tracks very dangerous persons, for whom denial of an
attempt to purchase firearms or explosives should be a no-brainer.

Among
the objective criteria for inclusion on the Terrorist Watchlist are
active membership in an organization devoted to jihad, a record of
transfers of money to a terrorist organization, and the incitement of
acts of terrorism. Only a small percentage of persons on the list are
U.S. citizens. Legitimate civil libertarian concerns should be allayed
by the fact that there is an appeals process for those who claim they
have been misidentified.

Concern over this gaping loophole in our
safeguards against terrorism on American soil is no idle pipedream. The
Government Accounting Office recently reported that between February
2004 and December 2014, individuals on the watch list attempted to
purchase firearms or explosives on 2,233 occasions — and more than 90
percent of the time, they cleared a background check and received
approval to buy.

Inspection of the NRA-ILA's objections shows them
to mostly consist of unrealistic paranoia. The fact is almost any law
could hypothetically be administered in a way that threatens civil
liberties. That's no excuse for blocking important public safeguards.

"I'll never know if I coulda stopped my stalker from killing my husband."

That's not very honest of Nikki. Better would have been to admit that in all probability, she couldn't have stopped the killer even if she'd been armed at the time. The fact is when a sick person pulls out a gun and kills another, it's nearly impossible to stop them in time. You'd have to be in the exact right place at the exact right time, and even then it might be too late.

As an African-American woman who lost her son, Jamar Hawkins, to an
illegal gun in November 2013 and as a lifetime resident of Homewood and
Penn Hills, I am sickened by Mr. Stolfer and his organization. His “all
guns, all the time” agenda is bad enough, but recently he had the nerve
to say that a gun-rights rally over an ordinance in Lower Merion, Pa.,
was “a Rosa Parks moment.”That’s not just the wrong thing to say — it’s just wrong.

The last I checked, Mr. Stolfer has never been denied access to a
seat on the bus, access to a public restroom, access to a job or access
to a vote because of his skin color. And I can’t believe that he or
anyone he knows has lost his life because some town didn’t want him to
fire or to carry his gun in a park.